Steadman reports: "The case revolves around a hashtag - #unbonjuif ("a good Jew") - which became the third-most popular on the site in October 2012."

Twitter is being sued for refusing to release user information. (photo: Chris Batson/Alamy)

Twitter Sued £32m for Refusing to Reveal Anti-Semites

By Ian Steadman, Wired Magazine

24 March 13

n January, a French court ruled that Twitter must hand over the details of people who had tweeted racist and anti-semitic remarks, and set up a system that would alert the police to any further such posts as they happen. Twitter has ignored that ruling, and now the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF) is suing it for €38.5m (£32.8m) for its failure.

The case revolves around a hashtag - #unbonjuif ("a good Jew") - which became the third-most popular on the site in October 2012. The UEJF took Twitter to court, demanding that those who had tweeted anti-semitic remarks using the hashtag be named by Twitter so the police could prosecute them for hate speech.

Twitter refused, arguing it was based in the United States and thus protected by the 1st Amendment's freedom of speech guarantees. A Parisian circuit court ruled against the social network, giving it two weeks to comply or face a fine of up to €1,000 (£849) for every day it doesn't. The UEJF want considerably more than that, says its president, Jonathan Hayoun, because "is making itself an accomplice and offering a highway for racists and anti-Semites".

"Twitter is playing the indifference card in not respecting the decision of 24 January," he added, when speaking to AFP. If the UEFJ wins its case, it plans to donate the money to the Shoah Memorial Fund. Twitter has said it will appeal the decision. It deleted many of the offensive tweets in January after the earlier court ruling, but has so far held back on using its country withheld content feature to pre-filter potentially offensive content, as it does with neo-Nazi posts in Germany.

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Strange that the pursuit of anti-semitic comments is so vehement. Having studied the thousands of Jewish/Israeli websites where demonizing Palestinians, Arabs and Iranians, yes, Muslims, or even foreigners within Israel is frequent and very nasty, I would say it is better to clean up the mess on their own doorstep first, or at least, simultaneously.Posting any form of racism or outright lie intended to harm others is despicable, whether it be directed at Jews or others. If the antisemitic brigade were not so self-obsessed, they might look out for anyone being discriminated against, rather than just themselves. While Israel occupies Palestinian land, the rage wrongly directed at all Jews will probably increase.

It is always a mistake to attempt to outlaw any kind of mere speech, because this creates a new class of "thought crime."

We must not validate the concept of "thought crime," because this would open the door to all kinds of abuse. That is why we must tolerate speech we find offensive or nonsensical,in order to preserve freedom of thought for everyone.

Most importantly, we must clearly preserve anyone's right to any kind of political speech or opinion. The Europeans are misguided in having created classes of forbidden speech and thought.

In this specific they need to learn from the example of the US. We are often behind Europe in our social and political development but in this case we are ahead of them.

The counter to hate speech is love speech. The only counter to a lie is the truth.As much as I decry certain ugly thoughts and would very much like never to hear them again, outlawing thought crimes is not a good answer.

Try being a defendant in a European court where the truth is no defense and where defense counsel is threatened with jail if he or she defends you too vigorously. Precedent case Sylvia Stolz google it.

Sylvia Stolz (born August 16, 1963) is a German lawyer who defended Ernst Zündel at his trial for denying the Holocaust in February 2007. During that trial she called the Holocaust “the biggest lie in world history” (quote from a third-party translation). Zundel was convicted and served five years in prison. Stolz was in turn tried for the same offense and served a 31⁄2 year prison term. She also was banned from the practice of law for five years.[1] She is married, to the also jailed Holocaust denier, Horst Mahler.She was released from Aichach Prison on 13 April 2011.....Seems that Germans are over-compensating for their crimes ... and Holocaust Industry The Holocaust Industry | Norman G. Finkelsteinnormanfinkelstein.com/category/the-holocaust-industry/Ten years ago this past month my book The Holocaust Industry was published. It evoked outrage from the Jewish-Holocaust-Israel establishment and marked ...

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